Good Sleep Helps Fighting the Crisis – Fiat Euro! 29/2012
In our today’s trips around the Mediterranean we can watch how Greeks try to sell, Spaniards try to borrow and Italians try to stay inconspicuous. We will also have
Eurozone
Slovakia: The Lord Helps Those Who Help Themselves
The current soap opera is far from being wrapped up by the bailout for Spain. We’re only at the 44th episode, and the main character of the whole series – Italy – has so far only been flitting furtively through the background. If you were to change the names of the countries to names of characters with a more southern ring, current developments in the eurozone would seem like a quality soap opera, full of…
The Euro: A Community of Shared Destiny?
In March 2010, when the Greek debt crisis was heating up, then-ECB president Jean Claude Trichet declared to the EU parliament that the “monetary Union in Europe is far more than a monetary arrangement. It is a union of shared destiny”. Less than two months later the ECB reversed its refusal to monetize debt and openly started buying government bonds in violation of its own charta. Germany also gave up its reservations about bailing out…
The “Sofia” Criteria for the Eurozone
The European Central Bank (ECB) published its Convergence Report(2012), in which it evaluates the progress of the members states that have committed themselves to joining the euro by following the convergence criteria, better known as the “Maastricht” criteria. At this point in time, Bulgaria has passed the requirements for deficit, debt, inflation and long-term interest rates, but this does not mean automatically that the road to the euro is open. What is more important, the…
We Need Real Choices: Interview with Jiří Schneider
Two years ago, here in Wrocław [at Wrocław Global Forum], you called United States and Europe “G2 of the world” and today you referred to them as “catamaran on stormy waters”, so I was wondering if you think that we can observe serious, permanent shift of power in contemporary world or just this storm that is going to pass? Well, I hope it’s a storm that is going to pass and I hope that we…
Lithuanian Think Tank Proposes a Stable Money and Euro Exit Plan
In response to the on-going financial crisis in the euro zone, LFMI, a leading economic policy think-tank in Lithuania, has worked out and submitted to responsible institutions a plan which would help countries exiting the euro zone to build stable and sound money. LFMI‘s proposal can be also used by the euro zone when attempting to strengthen the euro and to restore people‘s confidence in the single currency. The persisting crisis of euro zone state…
One Step Closer to the End – Fiat Euro! 20/2012
About the Greeks beating German-looking pensioners and Greek members of parliament playing black metal, while Merkel is happy to gamble with their lives. About fiscal pact, which is good in one country and bad in another one, about reducing debt with the help of magic and about American budgetary hockey game, which ended 99:0. After 3 000 years Greeks have improved the art of drama to the level of perfection. After practically nobody happened to agree…
Drama and Chaos
As finance ministers sat together at the Ecofin meeting last week, the future of the Eurozone was at stake, with Greek political deadlock casting a shadow of darkness over its own euro existence. Greek President Karolos Papoulias was going to ask politicians last Tuesday to stand aside and let a technocratic government be formed to avoid bankruptcy of the heavily indebted Balkan country even though radical leftists from Syriza party have already rejected the proposal…
Wherein Lies the Crisis and What to Do with It
The aging Estonia and Europe need to accept that the state has to earn and save before it can spend and must remain within its limits both financially and functionally, writes Jürgen Ligi, the Minister of Finance. Right now, large English language news channels could bear the common name ‘eurozone crisis’ and they could all be merged. All their attention is directed towards the crisis and the keyword with which it all starts and ends…
“The Taming of the Fiscal Shrew”
On March 2, EU-25 leaders signed the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union, commonly called the Fiscal Compact. The Treaty was not signed by the Czech Republic and Great Britain. Lithuania joined the treaty, but it still needs to be ratified by the Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas). Not being a member of the eurozone, Lithuania would be able to choose, which particular provisions of the treaty to commit to. However,…
